HJBR Mar/Apr 2022

60 MAR / APR 2022  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE   Hospital Rounds with support from Courtney Royal, MD. OHC – Liv- ingston is connected to the Ochsner Health net- work and its EPIC electronic medical record sys- tem. This ensures that patients can, if needed, be referred to appropriate specialty care without the need for duplicate testing. “Our new Livingston clinic fills a critical area of patient need, and it’s part of our aggressive plan to increase services throughout the region,” said Chuck Daigle, CEO, Ochsner Baton Rouge. Woman’s Adds OB-GYNs toMedical Staff Woman’s Hospital welcomed Alison Rodriguez, MD, and Suzanne Welsch, MD, both OB-GYNs. Rodriguez will lead the OB hospitalist program at Woman’s. She comes to Baton Rouge from Ochsner Baptist in New Orleans, where she served on the OB hospitalist team for four years and as the team lead during her last year. Prior to that, Rodriguez worked in private practice in Texas for 14 years. She is a board-certified OB-GYN with more than two decades of clinical experience. She received an undergraduate degree from the Uni- versity of New Orleans and a medical degree from LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans. She com- pleted a residency in obstetrics and gynecology from LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, where she served as chief administrative resident from 2002-2003. Welsch has joined the Assessment Center Phy- sician Group. She is a board-certified OB-GYN with nearly 30 years of experience, including most recently as a partner/owner of Prairie Clinic in Sauk City, Wisconsin. She completed medical school at Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Uni- versity of Utah in Salt Lake City. Welsch joins the medical staff alongside her husband, Anthony Evans, MD, PhD, medical director of gynecologic oncology. These new physicians will provide additional care for patients in the Assessment Center and during labor and delivery. Pennington, Ochsner Study Shows Largest Risk Factor for COVID-19 Infection Black residents of Baton Rouge and New Orleans faced twice the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infec- tion as white residents, a study shows. Ochsner Health and Pennington Biomedical Research Center analyzed 4,752 records from two large prevalence studies in both cities. The New Orleans data were collected in May 2020, and the Baton Rouge data in July 2020. “We found that communities that experience a lot of deprivation — high household crowding, lower income, disparities in education, etc. — are at higher risk for COVID,” said Amy Feehan, PhD, a clinical research scientist at Ochsner and the lead author of the study. “But individual fac- tors, such as race, marital status, age, and other health issues, account for a lot of that risk.” The study shows that in Baton Rouge the odds of infection were higher for: • People between 18 and 37 years old com- pared to people 38 and over. • Black adults and single adults compared to white adults and married adults. • People in healthcare, public-facing jobs, or other jobs compared to office workers. The study shows that in New Orleans the odds of infection were higher for: • Black adults and single adults compared to whte adults and married adults. Infec- tion risk for single adults was about 50 percent higher than for married adults. • Households with multiple residents com- pared to people who lived alone. • People with no other health issues com- pared to those with two or more medi- cal conditions. In addition to examining individual factors, the study also looked at characteristics of communities that might be related to higher COVID-19 infection. Infection risk was higher among residents in communities with larger dif- ferences in household income in New Orleans, but not in Baton Rouge. Higher monthly rent in New Orleans and higher percentages of high school graduates in Baton Rouge communities were associated with lower odds of infection. Kara Denstel, project manager for Popula- tion and Public Health Sciences at Pennington Biomedical, said the findings may have been influenced by when researchers gathered the information. “New Orleans data were collected in May 2020, when residents were under a stay-at- home order. Most restaurants and shops were closed. Non-essential employees worked from home,” Denstel said. “But when we collected the Baton Rouge data in July 2020, the stay-at- home orders had been lifted, businesses were reopening, and people were going back into the workplace.” “In addition, there was a rapid increase in knowledge and public health prevention campaigns during late spring and summer of 2020,” Denstel said. “The reason young adults in Baton Rouge had the greatest risk of infection may have been because they were the first to go back to work and resume social activities. Meanwhile, by July 2020, older age had emerged as a major risk factor for severe COVID-19 so many older adults were still stay- ing home.” The study was supported by Ochsner, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, Louisi- ana COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, The Humana Foundation, The Blue Cross and Blue Suzanne Welsch, MD Alison Rodriguez, MD